Friendship Dies and True Love Lies
by Stephensmat
Summary: Spoilers for the whole series, up to and including "A Good Man Goes To War". In the aftermath of the battle, four characters try to organize their thoughts. Oneshot.
1. The Battle's Won

**Friendship Dies and True Love Lies**

* * *

**RORY:**

I am... was a nurse. I don't know what I am now. My job was to provide support and assistance. Not just to the doctors, but to the patient. When they had no way out, and no happy endings, it became all the more important, the need to hold out that human hand to hold on to.

I did not embrace life in the TARDIS as my wife did. Because I know from experience. Doctors play God more than anyone.

But I love Amy, so I went with them. And I fell off the Universe soon after. Amy didn't even know I was gone. Or that I was there in the first place. I was a Neverwas from Neverwhere. How could a man not have doubts about himself after that?

The Pandorica Opened, and the Universe ended. I was The Last Centurion of the Empire. There to bear witness to the passage of centuries, and marvel at the differences in Earth's history when nobody could look up and see stars above.

Amy had something special with the Doctor. Special enough that I allowed just a little suspicion to creep through. And then I had a special connection of my own. Rory the Roman and The Doctor. We are The Old Soldiers. The last survivors. The terribly old ones, who just want nobody else to die. (_Not even a scared ganger girl._) My thoughts jump like that sometimes. Sitting next to that damned box for centuries gave me plenty of time to over-think things. Like the Doctor would if he ever stopped moving for a minute, I suppose.

I tried to lock it up when I got her back. Take the centuries and seal them away in my mind. Right now I can't do that. I have to get all those centuries of patience and of experience and waiting together and hold on to them tightly.

Deep down, I suppose I always knew. Not who River was, but _what_ she was. She was part Time Lord. Months ago, I knew, seeing them back to back, a swift and deadly circle of destruction, him sweeping through their weapons with his Sonic, her sweeping through their lives with her gun; surrounded by The Silence.

Who else would have a chance of flummoxing the Doctor? Who else could play god with the lives of people they loved?

River Song passed judgment on The Doctor. The only one who ever could look the Time Lord in the eye and tell him off. And she told him... She told him that she and the others had kept the original meaning alive. 'Healer' The one who 'makes things better'. They had to keep that alive, because the Time Lord Victorious was a fearsome Warrior to behold. Colonel Run-Away could vouch for that. So could the Cybermen. So could the Daleks. So could every creature in time and space that an innocent child would have nightmares about.

And when they wanted to frighten each other, they told 'Doctor' stories.

There were a few superstitious early Europeans that told scary stories about The Last Centurion. The things I have done to protect her over the centuries I will never tell her.

And now I have to be the strong one again. The one that waits. I can live with that. I have lived long enough to know that the universe is crazy. Things happen in reality that would never be plausible in fiction. You take what you can get.

I have my wife in my arms. I have my daughter with me, and I have a promise from The Time Lord that he will make it all better again. Is it perfect? No. But I can live with it.

The only thing that worries me... Is why was River in prison?

* * *

**DOCTOR:**

I always forget, how I used to be. I've had how many forms? How many reincarnations, and I always forgot how it is to be them. His last two incarnations. The last two faces I wore. They were born of fire, created on battlefields against the Daleks (_Ex-ter-min-ate! Daleks! ENEMY! Hate THEM! __**HATE**__ DALEKS!_) and they were born to survive.

I wonder sometimes, if there was something in me that found the right face, the right body, the right personality to survive the moment. When a warrior was needed, one emerged from the Vortex as I was reborn. When a warrior went too far and needed to be removed, you got someone without anger coming so naturally. (_AND STILL NOT GINGER! And Ears. Oh, man ears all over the place. I like ears though. Good for headphones. Need to get headphones. Headphones are cool._)

They all thought that it was the same Doctor every time, just another face. Like getting a plastic surgeon (_Cassandra, poor thing; did right at the end, deserved to say goodbye to herself, only person ever loved her_) to rebuild a face on the same person. But it wasn't.

You never knew who you were going to turn into. What he (_Or she, wonder what Martha would make of that?_) would do with the lifetime you made for him. I wonder if that's what the last Him thought. If that's why he went around to all the old friends (_Captain Jack, wonder if I'll meet him again. Allonsy? Who thinks that's a good catchphrase? Catchphrases are cool._) and made sure of them. (_Goodbye Sarah Jane. You will be loved. You will be missed._) Wonder if the last Me was trying to make a clean break, so that I'd never have to come back to this rage. (_Rose wouldn't recognize me. "The laws of Time are mine now, and THEY WILL OBEY ME!" Was going a bit off the rails wasn't he? The Master would approve. Let Ten go. Let Rose go. Let them all go. Another man's life._)

I took it on the chin when River made her little speech. (_River Song, coo-coo-ka-choo Mrs Robinson, so cute in that crib, but __**oh**__ how she grew..._) because I knew she was right. I have changed with the last resurrection, but I am still The Doctor. The weight of all that history is still on my shoulders, (_Scarecrow shoulders, still awesome though. Scarecrows are cool. Baines might disagree._) and he had to pay for that.

My fault. (_Not my fault, their fault. All Ten of them, how dare they?_) No. It is. Little Melody... My fault.

I fell for it too. Let myself think that the Time Lord Victorious was someone else. But he wasn't. Not by enough. Why would a Time Lord be a weapon? How could I forget so quickly?

I almost didn't recognize myself this week. (_"Look, I'm angry. That's new. Not really sure what's going to happen."_)

I haven't gone to war in this lifetime. I forgot how **easy** it was.

* * *

**AMY:**

They took her. They took my daughter. Rory's and mine.

And they took her because of him. No, not him. Me. Because I went and ran away with him one night, and took the man I loved with me. We had our honeymoon on another planet, and we made a weapon to be used against her godfather.

A crazy man that I dreamed back into existence, because when I was a little girl I had an imaginary friend, and we ran away together.

Why didn't I see this? I was there when the Pandorica Opened. She saw every scary monster the galaxy had to offer run for their lives, just because The Doctor dared them to come a little closer.

Why would they rather run away than face him? Why didn't I ask that at the time?

I was left alone in a dark hallway; holding a puddle of goo. My daughter. They took her off me... And too late I realize why the name 'Doctor' is so appropriate.

A Doctor does not just save the living. He is the one who declares you dead. When you realize that you have minutes left to live, and no clue how you got there, you look up at a doctor and beg him to save you.

And He's the one who decides, whether or not you can be saved. If you can, he does something brilliant and imaginative and he brings you back from the brink.

And if he decides you cannot, or should not; he's the one that looks at you with wise, kind eyes, filled with sadness, and tells you that your time is up, and you are going to die.

And you believe him, because after all, he's the Doctor.

I look at the Doctor with what used to be my daughter in my arms and I beg him to fix it, and make it all better. But he can't. He's as lost as I am. And I'm in hell, because if he doesn't know what to do...

Until... until _She_ shows up.

My daughter is gone. My best friend has gone after her. And... River. River Song. I made so many suggestive jokes about her and The Doctor. I'm sort of regretting them.

He was my imaginary friend. He'd been in my life for two hours when I was a little girl, and half a day when I grew up, and most of that was me running for my life. Why oh why did I think this was a good idea? I could have just married Rory, been blissfully happy, and had a normal child that nobody would abduct and take to another planet.

What, in the name of everything holy, am I supposed to be feeling right now?

* * *

**RIVER:**

I do remember her. The woman with the eyepatch. I remember everything. She told me you were a demon of darkness. The inky black between the stars spewed forth this Blue Box, and within... The Oncoming Storm. A storm that slew the universe's two mightiest empires in a nanosecond and sent a billion suns dark. And then you started to get dangerous.

And she told me that I was like you.

They never thought for a second that I could fall in love with such a man. They only knew you the way the Darkness knew you. So they never knew you at all.

Demon's Run. They never knew that we named it, My Love. You wondered where I got the name from. It was a nursery rhyme my mother told me. Over and over again. I must make sure she knows it before you bring me back to her.

_Demons run when a good man goes to war _

_Night will fall and drown the sun _

_When a good man goes to war _

_Friendship dies and true love lies _

_Night will fall and the dark will rise _

_When a good man goes to war _

_Demons run, but count the cost _

_The battle's won, but the child is lost, _

_When a good man goes to war. _

The look on his face. The impossible enthusiasm. That's what got me. He had that look when he went after me. And that's the real reason I couldn't go with him. I don't like to be there when that look fades.

I'm sorry, My Love.

* * *

_AN: Written in half an hour. I tried to make them in character. The Doctor is surprisingly difficult to pin down. I tried to make the way he acts into the way he thinks, always jumping back and forth from one thought to another before getting back on track._

_AN2: Sorry! Sorrysorry! Quick re-upload because somewhere in there I shifted tenses. my bad. Fixed now.  
_

_Read and review, and please be forgiving.  
_


	2. But The Child Is Lost

I know exactly who you are. You are 'The Oncoming Storm' the 'Bringer of Darkness' and 'The Evergreen' on Skarro. You are 'John Smith' on earth. You are 'Cold Bringer' to Forlah, and 'Starbright' to Kerola. You are 'Death-Dealer' to Raphlo, and you are 'Life-Source' to Tamith. You are the 'Great Warrior' to the Gamma Forest, and 'Old One' on Ravalox. To The Flood you are 'Time Lord Victorious', and to the Face of Boe you are 'Beloved One'. You are 'Ancient Child' you are 'Lonely God' you are 'Destroyer of Worlds' you are 'Merlin' and 'Coyote'. You are 'The Howler' to the Void-Child, and you are 'Wolfsbane' to Rose Tyler.

This is what you do. I mean... this is what you do. You do these incredible things. You burn down empires, and break chains of darkness and oppression. You set the universe on its head, evaporate empires, you tear apart the Parliaments of Conquerors... and then you leave. You just... you leave.

I am your opposite number. I'm the one that goes to all the places you go... well, the ones that are _left_ after you're done. But I don't leave. I stay. I'm in for the duration. The duration is so much longer than the war. And I am... tired. I'm so tired. I'm so tired of you. I'm so tired of following you around, picking up the pieces.

I have companions too. I pick one for each world I visit. They help me clean up your mess. It took you seven minutes to shut down Satellite five, and plunge humanity into darkness and confusion. How many millions rotted from decay and panic after you pulled the plug? If you'd stayed... If you'd just _waited_ for one day! But it took you a century to come back!

It took you less than a day to free the Saved Humans from the Virtual World of the Library. It took me months to sort out the people who mourned their families, their lives! Did you think they all just forgot the lifetimes they lived in that world?

The Daleks destroyed half the continents on earth during the Battle of The Bad Wolf. They warped whole continents, killed hundreds of millions... and I had to clean it up. Repair the damage, rebuild the cities, restart Satellite Five. While you left. You just... left.

I was the one who kept Torchwood out of The Racnoss Tunnels. I was the one that reignited the Amarog Sun. I was the one that warmed up Forlah. I was the one that rebuilt the Ood Birthing Pods. I was the one who had to teach the people of New New York how to use anything but their cars. I was the one that had to get all the Gangs of Darmol to work together after you tore down the empire. I was the one that rebuilt that small English Town after the Family of Blood got done flushing you out. I was the one who had to make it possible for things to _grow_ again on Tamith Karl before they all starved to death!

And you could have done any of this, or at the least you would have _noticed_... if you just stayed for one day! Why don't you _ever_ look back?

And I am tired. I am just... so tired. So tired of cleaning up your mess. But somebody has to. Because you just... You just leave.

I'm old. I'm so old now. And when I am gone, the chaos and destruction that you leave in your wake will continue like a wave. I have to stop you. Do you understand that? Just like you would if this was being done by anyone else. I have to save as many as I can, and leave the rest. Just like you.

I tried to stop you once. Recruited half the enemies you fought to get together and entrap you. I even designed the Perfect prison for them.

The Pandorica. I stole it from my Weapon's mother. From her mind. They symmetry appealed to me. That family has been my only chance against you for three generations. And just to make sure, I detonated your TARDIS with a mirror wave. It took the whole Universe with it. And it still wasn't enough!

IT JUST WASN'T ENOUGH!

Do you have any idea... any idea at all... how much work it took to get the Daleks, and the Cybermen, _and_ the Sonatarn, and half a dozen other races together to eliminate you?

None at all.

They hate you so much, are so scared of you... They practically begged me to succeed. Have you ever heard a Dalek _beg_? It's surreal.

What am I saying? _You_ probably have.

I approached The Master. I decided it took a Time Lord to kill another. But he had too much... ambition. He wanted to watch you weep. Wanted to lord it over you. He had every chance, and he never took any of them.

So I needed a different Time Lord. But you took care of that, didn't you? The only opposition that might have a hope, and you eliminated all of them in A Moment.

Thank god for your companions.

The Universe isn't big enough to hide from you, so I had to pick my training grounds perfectly. And I did.

* * *

The phone in the War Room rang. The Prime Minister answered it. "Churchill."

"Winnie, it's me!" The cheerful voice called. "I'm going to be popping in. Put away the breakables!"

Churchill barely had time to hang up the phone before the now familiar gasping roar of the TARDIS, arriving in a corner of his private office.

The door opened instantly, and he came out, putting up two fingers in a 'V for Victory' pose. "Hullo Winston!"

The Prime Minister did not stand up. "Doctor." He said coolly.

"Ohh, what's wrong? What have I done?"

"There's something you should see."

"Walk and talk. I have a story to tell you too!"

* * *

"...And that's the whole story." The Doctor finished. They had been walking through corridors for what seemed like forever. "How'd I tell it? I think I'm a pretty good storyteller all things considered. Winston, have we been walking in circles?"

"Yes."

"Oh, thank you. I sometimes think I should have written children's stories. I appear in enough of them."

"I mean, yes, we're walking in circles. I've led you up and down these three hallways for your entire story."

"Oh good, I thought I was in a cartoon for a moment, walking past the same water cooler so many times... Why?"

"I wanted to hear the whole story. I wanted to know if my information was true."

"Ahh. Good. Always good to double check. What information?"

They paused outside a door with five locks on it, and no window. It was unmarked. Churchill chomped on his cigar and paused long enough to look The Doctor in the eye. "Just remember. You could have stopped this at any time."

The Doctor's face hardened as the door opened.

The room was large. The walls were practically papered with bulls-eyes. Dozens of them. On the roof, on the walls...

...And in the center of the room, wearing a blindfold, was a six year old girl with reddish blonde hair, kneeling calmly.

At the door, was a man in a lab-coat. He saw who came in and froze, before snapping to attention. "Prime Minister."

"Hello Harrison. Give us a demonstration will you?"

"Yes Prime Minister." He turned to the child, and unslung his weapon. A standard issue rifle. He pulled a whistle from his pocket, and set the rifle on the ground.

The Doctor never took his eyes of the girl. "Melody..." He whispered.

Harrison kicked the rifle and it slid across the floor to the girl, blowing his whistle at the same time.

Without removing the blindfold, the girl snatched up the weapon as it slid into her reach, and fired it. Over and over. The shots came so thick and fast that it sounded like a buzz, as the girl spun around like a whirlwind, no hesitation, no pause, around and around until suddenly stopping, now at attention.

It took a second for the three men to look. The walls were covered with targets, and she had hit them all, dead center, in less time than it took them to count the targets.

BLAM!

One more shot.

Churchill took the cigar out of his mouth. She had shot two inches off it.

Only then did she take off her blindfold. "Hello sweetie." She said to the Prime Minister.

Churchill laughed, finding it a great joke. "I wish you wouldn't do that. These are expensive. Don't you know there's a war on?"

The six year old Melody smiled cheekily. It was River's smile, unchanged by time.

The Doctor was clearly horrified.

* * *

The Time Lord managed to keep his explosion under wraps until they made it back to The Prime Minister's office. "I'm taking her with me!"

"No you're not!"

"Watch me!"

"I don't see what business this is of yours anyway." Churchill snapped.

"Did you not listen to _anything_ I said on the way down there?"

"Every word. I've just heard it all before."

"From who?"

"From the woman who brought her here. Named..."

"Madam Kovarian." The Doctor growled.

"That's right. Now you. Did _you_ ever hear anything _I_ said?"

"When?"

"All the times you've come here, and I've told you how close we are to defeat. One day. That's all it would have taken you. One minute. A man who can command all space and time, but you will not help my country in its darkest hour?"

"We've been over this and over this!"

"Ten minutes inside the TARDIS! That was all I wanted! Ten minutes. And you denied me. Kovarian comes to me, and says that she works for someone who agrees that the _arrogance_ you display, deciding who is worthy to be saved, and who is unimportant enough to die... She said that her employer had sent us something. She said it was the greatest weapon the TARDIS had to offer. It was that child. At first I thought it was a joke. But you saw what she can do. The only thing that worried me was that it might be a deception of some kind. But you kindly told me the whole story, and confirmed everything I was told."

"She's not a weapon! She's Amy's daughter! You met Amy! You know Amy! You liked Amy!"

"Doctor, more than two thirds of the Generals and Admirals in my War Room have children in this war. If that little girl can end it... She can save _all_ their lives."

"She's a child. And you are training her to... what?"

"We aren't training her. We gave her an assignment. She's the one that came up with the perfect plan. Entrance, exit, and everything in between. My men have gone over it with a fine tooth comb. None of them can find any way it could possibly fail; and it came from a six year old girl! As far as I'm concerned, she's our last, best hope to win."

The Doctor was silent for a moment. "You gave her an assignment?"

"To kill Adolph Hitler."

The Doctor sat down, very suddenly. "You told that little girl to assassinate a man?"

"He's personally responsible for the death of millions, and will have no problem in killing millions more. He's not a 'man'. This war could be over tomorrow!"

"Hitler's not a target! He's practice!" The Doctor hissed.

"Practice?"

"For her real target!"

"Who?" Churchill said coolly.

"Me!" The Doctor yelled. "You're telling her that it's okay to murder a man, as long as it's a man responsible for millions of deaths."

"That's not murder, that's justice. In many cases, that's survival."

The Doctor stared at him for a beat, and ran for it.

_Uncounted hundreds of billions were killed in my war. Take one life and make it stop. I made that choice about whole planets. I can't blame Winston for this. Can't blame Melody either._

River's voice haunted him._ "And all this my love, in fear of you."_

* * *

The Time Lord ran back to the training room, before anyone could stop him. His screwdriver was out, and the doors flew open before him, locked again behind him, gaining him precious seconds. "Melody!"

The room was empty. Just targets full of bullet-holes on the wall.

The Doctor looked around the room for clue, when Churchill appeared in the door. "She's gone. Kovarian came right before you did, warned me you were on the way. The Mission started while we were arguing. I just had to keep you busy." He sounded genuinely regretful for it. "You were my friend Doctor. But my life is a history book to you. There are real people dying out there. They aren't numbers in a history book. Quite frankly, I don't give a damn about your history books. Your history is my future, and I will decide how to face it, thank you very much."

The Doctor blew past him, running for the TARDIS.

"Who is this girl that she can terrify you?" Churchill shouted after him. "WHY does she _frighten_ you, Time Lord?"

* * *

Amy knew that Rory had been waiting for so long. He waited for centuries for her to catch up with him. They never talked about it. About the ages of time that he spent alone. She never brought it up, but sometimes… just sometimes, she could see the weight of years on his face. Something about his eyes just looked heavier, sadder. Like the Doctor's eyes.

When they were taken home… after the battle of Demon's Run, she had collapsed in on herself. She had been with the baby for only a little while, and it was never really the child. It was a ganger. But she had been a ganger for her entire pregnancy. She knew better than anyone how real it was. She wondered if her baby missed her.

The hardest part of coming home was that nobody had noticed. Nobody had noticed they were gone, her parents didn't expect her to have a grandchild waiting for them…

She knew Rory had spent centuries waiting for her. She felt more love for him now that she had in the years before put together, because if he felt one _tenth_ of what she did… How had he lasted for centuries, if she was ready to scream after a few days?

River came to them soon after, and stayed with them for a while. But she wouldn't tell them anything. They were all time travelers. They all knew that their lives together wouldn't happen in the right order. Amy liked River, trusted her… but she wanted her baby girl back. Her sweet little Melody.

"I'm her!" River had insisted. "I'm your daughter! Amy…it's me."

"Then what _happened_?" Amy screamed.

"S…Spoilers." River croaked. It was the only time any of them saw her cry.

Rory stepped in then, pulled them a little away from each other. River seemed helpless suddenly. Something neither of them had ever seen in the archaeologist. In a way, Amy was glad that her baby had grown up into this strong brilliant woman. But a much bigger part of her knew that she and Rory would have very little to do with that.

"Rory." Amy cried a little. He pulled her to him tightly, and she hugged him back hard. "Why was she in prison?"

Rory looked sympathetic. "That'll keep."

Amy shook her head, growing hysterical. "No. No it won't."

Rory was shocked. "Why? What's wrong?"

Amy was breathing so hard she was hiccuping. "When… when we were hunting the Silence, in the Orphanage from hell, there was a picture of Me, with a baby. It had to be Melody!"

Rory didn't look shocked. Only saddened. He was so freakishly calm that she clung to him like an anchor. _He knew!_ She realized. _He at least suspected!_ "Rory! Tell me what you know!"

Rory sighed. "She said… She said that she was in prison for killing a good man. The best man she'd ever known."

"That's the Doctor! Rory, when the FBI came in to arrest us in 1969, I was there. The Doctor and I found the Astronaut, I saw her. The visor was open. It was a little girl. The same little girl in the orphanage. In the photo! Rory, that was our daughter on the beach! Rory, why doesn't River know that? She was there on the beach with us! Why was she shooting? Why was she so shocked? Why didn't she _know_?"

"I don't know. Maybe it wasn't her in the suit. There could have been a thousand other things that happened in between 1969, and that day on the beach." Rory said evenly. "But Amy, whatever else she is, she's also our child. As hard as this is on us, think about what it must be for her. You could barely handle keeping _one_ secret of the future from The Doctor. Imagine keeping _all_ of them from your parents."

"Why are you so calm about this?" Amy demanded. "Don't you know what any of this means?"

"No I don't, and neither do you. And Amy… It might change everything, except that it changes nothing. She's in our living room Amy. Our daughter is _alive_. Whatever happens to her, wherever they took her, wherever the Doctor went to find her, she's alive, and she's going to survive, and by all accounts she'll live longer than both of us put together. You were worried about what our child would be after all the things we've seen and done. Now we have an answer. Our child will be beautiful, brilliant enough to flummox a Time Lord and strong enough to terrify a Dalek. And right now she's in our living room."

Amy knew that Rory waited for her. Far longer than anyone would wait for anyone, but he waited for her. Centuries of keeping calm and collected were on his face, and she needed it; _craved_ that peace for herself. She loved him so much.

* * *

River Song was sitting in their living room, straining her ears to hear them talk. Things went quiet, and she jumped when the door opened again violently.

Amy came in first, storming into the room like an angry wind. "River… What happened with the Astronaut?"

"The Astronaut? The one who killed the Doctor?" River seemed shocked. Truly shocked. "What… what do you mean? I was there with you!"

Amy studied her, dissecting the answer. If she was lying, there was little to no chance that a humble human being would catch her out on it.

River tilted her head a little. Dissecting her mother's expression. "Why? What are you thinking?"

Amy felt hot tears rolling down her cheeks. "Spoilers."

River felt like she'd been kicked in the stomach. "Mom…?"

Both of them froze. It was the first time River had ever said that.

Amy just stared at her softly for a long time, before reaching out and taking River's face in her hands. "Huh." Amy said weakly. "You have Rory's eyes."

"Hair too." Rory said softly. "She got your nose and ears, thank god."

River actually looked shy. "I got my mom's legs and my dad's heart."

Amy laughed a little through her sob. "Our best features."

River felt tears welling in her eyes as Amy reached out for her. The redhead took her daughter's and kissed her tenderly on the forehead and cheeks. "God… My daughter."

River hugged her back, as Rory came to join them, wrapping his arms around them both. "Our daughter."

* * *

**AN**_: This one isn't going to get a conclusion. The conclusion will be the next episode. When I found out the title to the next episode was "Let's Kill Hitler' I wondered for a while where it was going. So I came up with this. I might add another chapter after the show gets aired, and I see what happens, but for now, it's done._


End file.
